field study on Lyme disease
Durland Fish, professor of epidemiology in the Division of Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases at the School of Medicine, has received a $2.9 million, four year grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to develop a detailed map depicting human risk of infection in the eastern United States from the spirochetal bacteria that causes Lyme disease.
The map created by Fish and his colleagues will be standardized over a large geographic area, and will represent an improvement over current risk models, which are based on localized, smaller studies and reports of tick findings. In addition, the research will provide information about the genetic strains of bacteria found in the times of year during which the risk of contracting Lyme disease is highest.
Lyme disease is caused by bites from ticks that are infected by the spirochetal bacteria Borrelia burgdorferi. Fish and his colleagues will study deer ticks (Ixodes scapularis), which occur east of the Great Plains.
Lyme disease was first recognized in the U.S. in Lyme, Connecticut, in the mid-1970s after the appearance of a cluster of cases of what doctors at first thought was arthritis. The disease is a public health problem in those places where ticks come into contact with people. The number of cases in the United States is rising steadily. According to the CDC, the number of cases reported annually has more than doubled since 1991, and annual Lyme disease incidence increased 40% between 2001 and 2002. Fish's grant is one of 10 for Lyme disease research that the CDC recently awarded in response to this data.
Fish and his colleagues will study nymphal ticks, which is the second of their three life stages. Ticks in this nymphal stage of life have a high prevalence of Borrelia infection and are of greatest risk to humans because of their small size. The field research will take place at 95 sites from Maine to Texas, chosen for the high levels of deer ticks.
"This is the largest field study ever conducted on Lyme disease," says Fish, whose team will estimate the population density of host-seeking deer ticks and the prevalence of Borrelia infection among them at each site. That data will be analyzed, along with information about variables including climate and vegetation throughout the U.S., using geographic information system software, which will allow the researchers to examine the relationships between the variables they are looking at and assist them in generating a continuous map of human risk for infection in the eastern United States for Lyme disease. The results will be used by the CDC and local public health officials to focus education efforts on Lyme disease prevention.
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